The Long Walk –

The  Long Walk from Fremantle to Coolgardie.
The experiences of two women.

Two Melbourne women, who walked from Fremantle to Coolgardie during the gold rush days, have come to Western Australia for the “Back to the Goldfields” celebrations (These events were held regularly in both Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie). They are Mrs Annie Tedge and Mrs Elizabeth Nicholls, daughters of the late Mr John Geen Colling. On Thursday they told the story of how they trudged from Fremantle to Coolgardie behind the waggonette that carried the family chattels. At the time Mrs. Tedge was 18 and Mrs. Nicholls nine. They were accompanied by their stepmother Martha nee Lewis, a 25-year-old brother, two sisters aged 22 and 15, respectively, and a 13 year-old-brother. All the children were born to Sarah Lewis Martha’s sister, Elizabeth was the only child of Martha.

Father said we were to come over, and in those days daughters did what their fathers told them.

The family had come from Bendigo to join their father, John Colling, who was at the Londonderry mine and conducted a condenser. ‘My father came to the West in 1894, and we arrived the following year to join him,” said Mrs Tedge. “We were a farming family and hardy, but we did not realise what we were coming to or we would never have had the hearts to face it. My brother was a fair bushman and led us through safely, but if it had not been for the kindness shown to us by people on the road, particularly Pat and Jim Hoddy, of Northam, we would never have got through. On the way, our shoes hurt us so much that we took them off, and once we had done that we could not get them back onto our bruised and swollen feet.

Mrs Elizabeth Nicholls and Mrs Annie Tedge

Our brother, who lived on the ‘fields’ until he died about nine years ago, took the soft lining from a portmanteau he found along the road, some weary traveller’s discard, and wrapped it around our feet. It was in these improvised shoes that we arrived at our destination.” The family drove from Bendigo to Melbourne in a waggonette drawn by two horses. The vehicle and animals were shipped with them to Fremantle and used to carry the stepmother and baggage to the goldfields. The ship was crowded with men and families making for Western Australia, the El Dorado of the 90s, and the passage was so rough that the two ladies now recollect little of it, as they were sick most of the time. When they did arrive off Fremantle the ship tossed about outside for a day before they could land. Although the train was then running as far as Southern Cross, they decided to go by road. It was spring weather, Perth a fresh city with a green landscape, and they did not realise the enormous difference between a road journey by wagon in Western Australia and a similar experience in Victoria. The water difficulty was with them throughout. The trip from Fremantle to Coolgardie took four weeks.

The Devil’s Pinch.

‘There was no room on the waggonette for the children, so we had to walk,” said Mrs Tedge, who, because she was older at the time, remembered the details more vividly. “As far as Southern Cross the difficulties were not too much for us, although the strain, after our trying days at sea, was considerable. As we penetrated farther east the weather grew hotter (it was in August and September) and our brother made us travel in the early mornings and during the cool of the evening. We slept in tents and rested during the mid-day hours of fierce heat. Gradually the strain began to tell. My little sister (Mrs Nicholls), who was the youngest of the party, was often so tired that we would take in turns to carry her pick-a-back. But our brother would not let us do this very much, because it overtaxed our strength, and it was better to make haste slowly than risk a complete breakdown on the part of any one of us. So on we went, day after day, trudging over the red gravel roads of the hills, across the fertile valley of the Avon, and through the glaring scrub country until we had passed Southern Cross and faced the treeless, sandy waste known to everyone who passed that way as the Devil’s Pinch. “It was then that our troubles began in earnest,” Mrs Tedge continued.

“We were hampered by the fact that the wheels of our light waggon did not span the tracks made by the teamsters. Over the Devil’s Pinch, the going was fearful. Our narrow-rimmed wheels churned heavily through the sand, and we children dragged on behind under the hot morning sun, encouraged to proceed by the cheering words of our eldest brother who faced up to his responsibilities manfully. At one stage the horses lay down and refused to budge another step. We were stranded in the middle of a fearful waste of sand. There was no tree to give us shade, no bird sang to cheer the solitude, and overhead the sun and a sky of lead pressed down on us like a physical weight. Crouched under the few square feet of shade made by our flimsy canvas we helplessly awaited succour or the end, although, as may be well imagined, our brother had done all that was humanly possible to get us out of the difficulty we were in.

Horse and waggon – Photo Pinterest

But horseflesh could no longer stand the strain of pulling the loaded waggon through the deep sand. Had we had draught horses it might have been different, but our poor beasts were not equal to the task imposed upon them. It was the Hoddy brothers who came to our assistance. They had a big team and were loading goods from ‘the Cross’ to Coolgardie. After they had crossed the Devil’s Pinch they unhitched their leaders and came back for us. Had it not been for this assistance we could never have got through.” It took the girls three weeks after their arrival at Coolgardie to recover from the ordeal they had gone through. Then they found jobs and settled down to life in the canvas town that was Coolgardie in the 1890s. Both sisters married on the Goldfields and lived there for a number of years before going back to Victoria. The other two sisters who accompanied them on the journey are now living in Melbourne. The brothers stayed on the WA goldfields until they died just a few years ago. Their father was the one who left the Goldfields and returned to Victoria where he died in 1925 in the Melbourne Benevolent Asylum.
Mrs Tedge has re-visited her old home several times, but this is Mrs Nicholls’s first visit after 28 years. They claim, with their sisters, to be the only women to have walked from Fremantle to Coolgardie, although other women have walked from Southern Cross.

Sarah Annie COLLING married Joseph TEDGE in Coolgardie in 1900
Elizabeth Hannah COLLING married Thomas John NICHOLLS in Coolgardie in 1908
John Lewis COLLING married Elizabeth BOLTON in Burbanks in 1906
Mary Louisa COLLING married Arthur William WARE in Coolgardie in 1903
William Thomas COLLING married Alice Maud PRATT in Coolgardie in 1913
Edith Jane COLLING married James Henry BARRETT in Kalgoorlie in 1912